


Leave My Heart Being Undressed

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 06:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13676070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: A phone call on Victor's birthday and a conversation in the dark lead to Chris and Victor trying a new kind of relationship.





	Leave My Heart Being Undressed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tripcyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripcyclone/gifts).



Normally, Chris wouldn't bother Victor when he knew he was at a competition – texts, not calls – but today was an exception.

"Chris?" Victor mumbled when he picked up at the other end, sleep still clinging to his voice, though it was a very reasonable time to be up where he was. "Hello?"

"Hello," Chris replied. "Turn your video on." Victor did so, and the way he blinked at his phone suggested that, yes, he'd slept in rather more than he should have. He was awake now, at least, so Chris took a breath and started to sing, low and slow: " _Happy birthday to you_...."

Victor's sleepy confusion broke into a grin, and he let out a little laugh as Chris finished and blew him a kiss. "Thanks," he said. Chris could see him collapsing down onto some generic hotel bed, the screen breaking up slightly before the connection re-established itself. "I'm hoping for a good score from the judges as a present."

Chris had always thought that skating on one's birthday sounded like fun, but maybe it wasn't so much when that birthday overlapped with Nationals nearly every year. Victor, at least, had made it sound like it came as an afterthought when the topic had come up a couple of years ago. He'd mentioned that his coach or his rink mates would take him to a nice dinner somewhere after the competition was finished, and that was about it. "I thought about sending you a gift," Chris said, leaning forward on his own bed. "But I wasn't sure it would be practical to send you a single tulip."

Victor's face turned into that cute confused expression. "Tulip?" he asked after a long moment of silence.

"Yes, in exchange for the one you gave me the first time we met." Victor's confusion didn't clear. "Victor, I know you remember that."

"Wasn't it a rose?"

"It was definitely a tulip."

"No, it was a red rose."

"It was a pink tulip." And he could prove it: Chris stood and crossed to the other side of his bedroom, leaving his phone behind, then came back with a thick book. The flower wasn't so pretty now, pressed and dried, having lost a lot of its color, but it was still recognizably a tulip when Chris pulled it out and showed it to Victor. "See?"

"Huh. You kept it?"

Of course he had. Victor hadn't been quite as famous back then – he hadn't been winning absolutely everything – but he'd been successful and talented and very pretty. Chris had wanted to become his friend, and he'd been more than a little infatuated, and he'd grinned to himself about having caught Victor's attention for the rest of the day.

"I liked it," Chris said with a smile, tucking the flower safely back away.

"I was so _sure_ it was a rose." Victor sighed. "Maybe I'm getting old, Chris. Maybe my memory's going. Twenty-seven is over the hill, isn't it? It's all downward from here. Even my hair's vanishing."

"It is _not_."

"You don't need to assuage my vanity," Victor said mournfully. "It's thinning, I know it."

"Since when have I ever lied to you about your appearance? Your hair looks fine."

"Maybe you just can't tell over the phone."

"If you want, I'll give it a thorough inspection at Euros. I certainly didn't notice anything at Sochi, though."

"Sochi...." Victor's eyes lit up, and he sat up, making the background of the video blur and pixelate again. "That reminds me! Do you have Yuuri's number? I left mine in his pocket but he never texted me, and I don't know if he missed it or if he's being shy or what, and he doesn't use social media, so I haven't been able to message him first."

"I think I do." He went to his contacts, scrolled all the way down, already mentally composing a text to Yuuri, and – as it turned out, he didn't. Must have lost it when his old phone broke in a terrible accident (kitty shoving it off the table one too many times). He relayed his apologies to Victor, who slumped on hearing the words. Something about seeing that didn't sit quite right with Chris. It didn't look like Victor was exaggerating his reaction, before he sighed dramatically and changed the topic or something; he actually looked dejected. "Did you want to talk to him that badly?"

"Yeah." Victor straightened a bit. "I suppose I'll see him at Worlds, at least. Even if that's ages away."

Chris didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but.... "Victor," he said slowly, "Yuuri isn't going to Worlds."

"What? Is he injured? I hadn't heard."

"Not that I've heard of, either." Chris, curious, had looked up the video of Japanese Nationals. He liked Yuuri. He'd been hoping to see him again, too, had been thinking idle thoughts about what the two of them could do if he could convince Yuuri into a pole dance studio. Maybe bring Victor along. And then he'd seen the video. It was painful to watch; Yuuri had barely held it together in his short program and completely fallen apart in his free skate. Maybe it _was_ an injury, and it wasn't public. Chris hoped it wasn't too bad. "They're sending someone else."

Victor stared. "Japan doesn't have any other men with his talent."

"No. But for whatever reason, he didn't do very well at Japanese Nationals, I'm afraid. So." Victor frowned, and when he didn't say anything after a minute, Chris asked, "Did you like dancing with him that much?"

Victor flopped back against his pillows. "I did," he said, his voice going quiet. "It was – I don't know how to describe it. It was as though he lit something in my heart. You saw how he moved. He's a better dancer than any of the rest of us – it's like he makes music just by moving. When he grabbed my hand, it was like... like we had a real connection. Like he saw right through everything to me."

Chris wasn't sure what to say to that; his tongue sat heavy in his mouth. He couldn't remember Victor talking like that about someone, and it'd been a long time since he'd made that kind of expression while enthusing about another person. Soft, eyes distant, curled fingers absently brushing his fringe from his face.

He looked a little like he was in love, even though it had only been one night of dancing and hardly anything else. Even though he wasn't – or at least, Chris had thought Victor wasn't looking for love at the moment. Victor had had lovers, sure, and he liked the _idea_ of love, but he'd told Chris himself that skating took up too much time and focus. The first time was just after he'd been dumped for not being able to find enough free hours between practice and classes and sleeping for his boyfriend's taste, but it hadn't been the last.

Chris would understand about skating coming first.

Jealousy was never a good look. He tamped it down and said, "Well, I know it's not for a while, but there's always next season, at the least." The light went out of Victor's eyes, and he made a small, unhappy noise of agreement. What was with him, today? "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, everything's fine." The smile Victor gave him was obviously fake. "It's just...." He stretched an arm above his head, and his gaze went off to the side. The fake smile slipped. "Do you ever feel tired?"

"Sometimes." Sometimes, when his joints ached, or he was nursing yet another small injury, bruises and strained muscles and sprained wrists. He hadn't even considered the impact of all the jumps and falls when he was fifteen; he had brushed the thought aside when he was twenty. It was worth it, still, but there were nights when he wondered how many years he had left in him to give to the sport.

The ice still drew him in, though, the music, the audiences, even Victor. He wasn't ready to quit, not yet.

...was Victor? Victor, of all people.

"I guess I shouldn't complain too much," Victor said. Chris studied his expression. Something about it wasn't striking him as quite right.

"You're allowed to, if you want. You know you can always talk to me. About anything."

Victor looked at him again, gave him a little smile, started to say something – only to be interrupted by a knock on the door on his side. He turned and shouted something in Russian. "Yakov is here to make sure I actually go to practice," he said. "I'll see you later."

"Of course. Good luck to you and everyone." An impulse made him reiterate, "And I meant it, if you ever want to talk about something."

"Is that an invitation to show up in Switzerland sometime?" Victor teased, his head disappearing from the frame as he ducked to grab something.

"Call before you reach that point? Or at least text me before you get on the plane so I know to be home."

They waved good-bye, and then the call shut off. Chris slowly lowered his phone to the bed and turned so he was lying on his back. He stared at the ceiling for more than a few minutes, thinking.

~!~

January passed Victor by in a haze of similar days: practicing at the rink, walking Makkachin in the dark because he'd spent his daylight on the ice or some other form of training, cooking diet-plan-friendly recipes he'd long since memorized, scrolling through social media. Yuri came over a couple of times during off days, which was a nice disruption, despite his furious remarks about how Victor was doing the stirring or the cutting wrong when they cooked.

And there were texts from Chris. More than usual, lately. Victor wondered if Chris was as bored as he was, but that couldn't be. Not _Chris_. Besides, he always seemed to have so much going on. Visits with his parents, selfies taken with friends Victor didn't know against the backdrop of the picturesque mountains.

Euros was at least a different routine, the deeply familiar one of competitions. And Euros, at least, came with Chris greeting him with his usual smile that made Victor smile back, an arm slung about his shoulders, chatting as Victor waited to get checked in to the hotel.

Victor knew how this was going to go: tonight, and whenever they had free moment, he and Chris would duck out to find all the good local places to eat. They would practice and they would compete and Victor would tell himself that he could always mess up a jump (it had happened before!) or some other element of his skating, would go through the motions of his performance backstage to focus, and then he would win. Chris would probably get second. Maybe on the last night he would go back to his room by himself, because the appeal of one-night stands had worn off a long while ago, or maybe he would let Chris pull him into his room, because at least he knew Chris and Chris knew him and it would be good.

Or maybe this would be the first time that Chris would win gold over him. One never _knew_. Victor thought that would be even more interesting than winning yet another gold medal for his collection, even if his fans would be disappointed. He wondered how Chris would react if that would happen, if the articles would paint it as Chris's triumph or the start of Victor's own downfall.

But probably he would win and Chris would be silver and the audience would go home happy.

They ended up going out with several other skaters, and tucked into a corner table in a warm restaurant, eating delicious food, Victor found himself relaxing. He always enjoyed this part, and the strange mood that he lately hadn't been able to shake very often lifted away. He laughed with the other skaters, crooned over pictures of one woman's pet rabbits and lamented how he couldn't bring Makkachin, and stole bites from Chris's plate until Chris elbowed him too hard.

They lingered for a while after the meal was finished. Victor checked the time when he realized that he'd been listening to the two people across from him talk for five minutes without taking in a word; it wasn't that late, and the flight to Slovakia had only been four hours, but he could feel himself getting sleepy for whatever reason.

Chris jumped when Victor tipped his head onto his shoulder. "Tired already?"

"I'm an old man, remember? I'm supposed to go to bed early."

Chris shook his head and let him stay where he was. Chris was warm, which didn't really help with the sleepiness, but it also made Victor think of other things. He slipped a hand out of his lap and onto Chris's knee. Chris, after a moment, slid a hand down and on top of it, held it, and even that little bit of affection was nice.

When they finally stepped outside, the slight chill – and the sharp wind that hadn't been there earlier – helped to wake him up again, along with the short walk back to the hotel. A pair of ice dancers from Spain complained about the temperature, sparking a debate with the members of the group from chillier climates as to whether it was cold enough to be worth grumbling about.

The group broke up at the hotel, some people stopping in the lobby, some people heading back out again, and it was only him and Chris who got off the elevator at their floor. Chris paused at one door to get out his keycard and glanced at Victor as he swiped it. Victor followed him in, and didn't let him pause long enough to turn on the lights before he pushed him to the bed, climbed into his lap, and kissed him.

Chris's arms were around him instantly, and then a hand in his hair to tilt his head into a better angle. "Impatient," Chris teased when they broke apart. "Were you longing for my touch, Victor?"

He might have been longing for _someone's_ touch. Even that short break in the kissing was almost too much. Victor leaned into another, and he couldn't think of anything but how hot Chris's mouth felt, the touch slowly drifting down the back of his neck. It was a long few minutes before he let Chris pull them apart again, and only then did Victor start working on the buttons of their coats.

It should have been good. Instead, Victor started to lose the mood, not reacting as he should have when Chris finally touched his bare skin, tilting his head to let Chris kiss his neck without really feeling it for a few moments.

A little frustrated with himself, he leaned Chris back on the bed and kissed him harder, twisted their legs together, touched Chris how he knew he liked to be touched. But as much as it pleased him to see Chris's eyes flutter in the dim light peeking through the window, as much as he enjoyed running his fingers across his chest and the feel of Chris's firm calves against his own, it wasn't _working_ like it should have. He didn't know why. It wasn't like he'd been drinking, and he wasn't _that_ tired.

He meant to keep going, but of course Chris noticed that he wasn't getting into it. "Victor?"

"It's fine," Victor reassured him. He kissed Chris again, and Chris let him, but then took his hand when Victor tried to move it lower.

"Are you sure? We don't have to if you're too tired." He _wasn't_. Was he? The timezone was only a couple hours off, and he'd gotten up a bit early to play with Makkachin and make sure she had a proper amount of affection before he left her, but not that early. Maybe he hesitated a moment too long thinking about it, because Chris nudged him and said, "Really, Victor, it's fine."

Of course Chris would be like that. And now Victor felt like he had ruined the mood for both of them. "Sorry."

"It's okay. Don't apologize." Chris started to turn over and reach for the lamp, but Victor was the one to grab his hand this time. If nothing else, he wanted to at least stay like this, comfortable and close in the dark. In the morning, maybe his body would be up for more fun things.

Which didn't really solve the problem for Chris. "Are you sure you don't want me to?"

"Only if you want to."

Victor liked making people happy. He leaned forward for yet another kiss, heated enough to be a pleasure of its own even if the rest of him wasn't getting turned on properly – Chris knew how to kiss him properly, and he moaned into Victor's mouth when Victor wrapped a hand around him.

It was quiet for a while afterward. It was nice. Victor liked cuddling, too, and he was already looking forward to waking with his face buried in Chris's hair, or tucked against his collarbone. Makkachin was the best dog in the world, but sleeping next to her wasn't the same as having a human to wake him up with a kiss.

Chris wouldn't have been a bad choice for that human, not at all. It was really too bad that he lived so far away. And that he was more the kind of guy to keep things casual. (He might have mentioned boyfriends a couple of times before, but Victor didn't know how serious those had been.)

After all, Chris was good-looking, and one of the few people who didn't _really_ care how famous Victor was or wasn't, and the way that his fingernails were scraping gently across Victor's scalp was making him melt. "I told you," Chris murmured. "Your hair's fine. It's not thinning at all."

Ah, so he'd remembered. "Are you sure? It's dark in here."

"Well, _someone_ didn't want me to turn on the light, but it feels like it has every other time I've had my hands buried in it."

"Thank you for checking," said Victor, and he leaned up to press his lips to Chris's stubble before he snuggled firmly back down into his shoulder.

"Was there anything else that was bothering you?"

His tone was light and teasing, and Chris wouldn't want to hear him whine about being bored anyway, so he replied in kind with, "Well, I haven't figured out the choreography for my programs for next year yet. Do you think I'm out of inspiration?"

"Victor," Chris laughed. "That depends – do you have the music picked out, at least?"

"Kind of." He had some pieces for the _Eros_ arrangement, but it was missing something that would bring it together into a coherent program. And it wasn't really a problem that he didn't have two programs and an exhibition half-formed yet, but usually by this point he at least had ideas for things to try. "Maybe I just need a change. Any thoughts? I don't want to cut my hair even shorter."

"I don't know what your method is. Try something new? Dance lessons you haven't taken before, visiting someplace you haven't been to?"

"Hm." He stretched his arms out above his head and half-turned onto his back; the movement felt good in his shoulders. "I read somewhere that passion is the best thing for imagination. Maybe I should try falling in love." For a few days, he'd thought that perhaps Yuuri would – but that hadn't worked out, had it. Either Yuuri hadn't found his number or he'd decided he didn't want to talk with Victor again, and it would probably be _ages_ before they had the chance to see each other again at a competition, so that was looking unlikely as an option.

He was expecting Chris to give him some advice, but what he got instead was Chris propping himself up on one elbow and poking Victor's shoulder. In the dim light, and at this angle, he couldn't see his expression that well. "Weren't you the one who decided that love was too much trouble right now?"

"I changed my mind." It would at least be _different_. It would at least give him something to focus on that wasn't how skating was starting to feel like it was strangling him, how he didn't really _want_ to skate next season but didn't know what else to do instead.

Chris poked him again. "Falling in love isn't something you can do on demand. It takes time."

Victor shrugged. "But I can try, can't I? Isn't that how a lot of people do it? Find someone promising and date them and see what happens." Not quite as romantic as having someone new swoop in out of nowhere and knock him off his feet, but that didn't seem to be a very reliable method.

"What's promising for you? Someone who skates, I assume."

"That would be nice. And who's kind and handsome. Good at cooking, good in bed."

"Likes animals and traveling?"

"And dancing. That's not asking too much, is it?" When Chris didn't respond after a moment, Victor squinted at him and poked him back.

"Don't you already know anyone like that, in fact?"

"Hm?" He quickly ran through a mental list. Yes, or at least people who fit some of those items, but it seemed like most of them were unavailable for some reason or another: they were not into men, or taken, or not his type, or whatever.

Chris sighed. "I guess I'll try being less subtle." He sat up further. "Victor, do _I_ fail any of your requirements?"

Wait. No, he didn't, but— "I thought you didn't really date," Victor said slowly.

"...Victor, I know for a fact that I've told you about people I was dating. It's not _always_ one-night stands and friends with benefits."

"Not _that_ much," Victor mumbled. "And we live in different countries."

"A lot of people do it long distance. I did it once, for a couple of months." After a moment when Victor didn't say anything, he added, "Do you know for sure that it wouldn't work for you?"

"No," he said. At least they could meet up a few times a year, visit during the off-season. It wouldn't be the same, though. Victor couldn't imagine training with anyone but Yakov, and he knew Chris really liked his coach, too. Maybe when they retired...? "I guess we could try it."

Chris reached over and fumbled for his hand. Victor squeezed it back. Well. Trying new things was exciting. He wasn't in love with Chris, at this moment, but – maybe he could be. He liked the idea of that.

Victor leaned up to kiss him. It wasn't really any different than the kisses they'd shared just a little while ago, or at any point before, but it _felt_ different this time, like a decision.

"Okay?" Chris murmured, pressing more kisses to his temple. Victor tugged him back to the bed. "Come visit me this summer," Chris offered once they were settled under the blankets. "After Worlds, maybe."

They talked about it for a couple of minutes, hashing out rough plans – hashing out a kind of _let's try this_ at the same time – before they gradually fell quiet.

It seemed to Victor that there should have been some sudden shift in the air between them, but there wasn't, really.

~!~

After sleeping in Chris's bed for the length of a competition, it was strange and more than a bit disappointing to come home and not have him. There was Makkachin, at least, bright-eyed and happy to see him, and the first thing he did was give her lots of attention to make up for yet another absence. When she was finally tired out, he snuggled into bed with her by his side and turned on his phone to text Chris.

Chris had said that the key to a good long-distance romance was the same as it was for any relationship: communication. So they communicated.

They'd always messaged each other fairly freely, but now they did so more often. _Good morning_ and _good night_ , photos of Makkachin being cute in exchange for pictures of Chris's kitty being cute, comments and complaints about practice and training. After a couple of weeks, they got into the habit of making calls while making and eating dinner, and Victor found that he liked that connection, that it made it feel less like they were separated by two time zones and several countries.

When they talked about how their days had gone, it usually felt like Chris had the more interesting stories. Sometimes Victor had something to talk about – the day that Yuri blew up at him when Victor tried to give him some advice, only for Yakov to come over to yell at them both and then tell Yuri that Victor had been right, for example. Other days, there wasn't much.

Victor found that he started to take Makkachin down different routes when they went for walks, in the hopes of discovering something new and making his days sound less boring when they talked. A little café he'd never been to before, for instance, or simply a stick hidden among the snow in the park for them to play with together. It sometimes felt like he knew everything about the city after living here for his whole life, but there were still little surprises like that, and sometimes those surprises served good food.

He came home one evening exhausted from practice and nursing a headache. He was too tired to do much more than collapse on the couch and wait for Makkachin to come over, although he couldn't quite get to sleep. He stroked Makkachin's cheeks and rubbed her neck, and stared at the ceiling when he didn't feel like keeping his eyes closed any longer.

Before he mustered the energy to have dinner, or at least get up and take something for the headache, his phone went off. He glanced at the screen. If it had been Mila or Yuri, he would have let it go to voicemail; for Yakov he might have picked it up to see if it was important; but when he saw it was Chris, he answered it and switched the video chat on.

They were several minutes into their usual conversation when Chris paused at the end of a sentence to ask, "Are you feeling okay?"

"It's just a bit of headache." He shifted, winced as it sent a stab of pain through his temple, and then tried to cover it up with a smile. It would have been better if Chris were here in person to bring him medicine and tea and let him put his head in his lap.

"Do you want to hang up so you can get some rest?"

"No, it's fine." Chris still looked skeptical, so he added, "I like listening to you talk," which was true.

They did end up finishing the call early, though maybe that was simply because they'd run out of things to talk about earlier than usual. There was one interruption when Chris's cat decided that he should be paying attention to her, rather than his laptop; when Chris picked her up to admonish her, she bopped him on the nose as she squirmed, and Victor couldn't help but laugh even when the jostling made his head hurt more. Makkachin peered up from his chest, clearly wondering what the fuss was about.

"I," Victor started to say before they hung up, before he'd decided what he wanted to say. They weren't at the 'I love you' stage yet, but he meant it when he said, "I miss you."

Chris's expression softened. He sat back, kitty now set firmly in his lap. "Only a week to World's, right? And then you'll be here."

"Only a week," Victor repeated, before making a face.

"I know," sighed Chris.

Chris wished him well, and they extended their good-byes more than was necessary, blowing kisses at each other through the screen. Then Victor's apartment was dark and silent once more.

He heaved a huge sigh and told Makkachin, "Okay, let's get dinner now." He made himself get up and find painkillers and food for the both of them. The quiet bothered him as he poked at his vegetables; only a few weeks had made their evening chats into a bright spot of his day. Even on days like today where they didn't really say anything.

At least his head felt better when he woke up the next morning. After taking a run with Makkachin and eating breakfast, he tapped out a quick good-morning message to Chris, and by the time he was at the rink, they were having a silly little conversation. Chris complained of waking up with a headache of his own, and while their joking about how Victor must have passed it on to him wasn't really that funny, it made Victor smile anyway.

"What are you laughing about?" Mila asked, leaning on to the boards next to him.

"Just a stupid joke from Chris." He sent his reply and fiddled with the volume buttons to turn his phone off.

"Is that who you're texting all the time lately?" He nodded. She dropped her chin into her hand. "And here I was thinking you'd found a boyfriend. Or are you two dating?"

Her tone was teasing, not serious at all, but there wasn't any reason not to reply as though she'd actually been asking. "Kind of." It didn't feel so much like dating when they were so far apart. Mostly they talked to each other, which in some sense wasn't so different from before, though the frequency was. And sometimes when they they had the energy, they got creative with Skype. Which wasn't bad, but. Six more days.

"Wait, _what_?" Mila asked, her eyes wide. "Since when?"

"Since Euros," he said, setting his phone down and taking off to start warming up on the ice. She followed him, demanding details, and he gave her a few after swearing her to secrecy (secrecy in this case meaning the confines of the rink, rather than all of social media).

"Georgi says that competitive rivals falling in love is very romantic," he reported to Chris much later, curled up in his dark bedroom with his phone. Chris made an amused sound, and it wasn't the same as having him there, true, but it was different from – better than – those many night spent alone without even another voice with him.

~!~

Chris came off the ice after his free skate at Worlds feeling shivery, a little feverish, and wobbly. _That_ had been a very good skate, and he could feel it in every limb, in the flush on his cheeks.

There was Victor, next to go, his eyes wide and bright with something as Chris slowed down and came to the exit. The joy of competition, maybe. Josef handed him his skate guards – he was smiling, looking very proud, and that was always a good sign – and started to say something as Chris got them on.

Chris didn't hear a word of it, because Victor, already a little breathless, went, "That was _amazing_ , Chris," and a little detail might have been nice, but instead of saying anything more, Victor stepped closer. Before Chris realized what he was doing, there were hands on his cheeks, lips on his.

Someone gasped, though it wasn't either of them. After a moment, a loud cheer rose from the crowd.

Chris was the one to pull away from it, if only because he really did want to sit down and catch his breath. Well, that was one way of announcing their relationship to the world. Victor and his surprises! "Go out there and take silver, if you please," Chris murmured with a smile, and then he let himself be herded towards the kiss-and-cry.

Victor's coach was covering his face with his hand and mumbling in Russian. Josef simply raised an eyebrow as they sat down and he handed over something to drink, before resuming what he'd been trying to say before.

It was a very, _very_ good score. Not quite enough for gold after Victor landed all of his quads perfectly – including that damn flip of his – but Chris tried to console himself that it was at least quite close. It didn't really help, but such was life, and he had practice at working through the disappointment.

They made it through the flood of reporters afterward – at least a few were more interested in this new relationship between two of the top men's skaters than in Victor winning yet another gold – until they collapsed back at the hotel. Chris tucked himself into Victor's side and was content to not move for a while. He might have been good for a nap before they ordered dinner, if Victor hadn't pulled out his phone and started shining light near his eyes.

"It turns out," Victor said, "that half the internet thought we were already secretly dating."

If that was news, he hadn't seen some of the comments on the selfies they'd posted together in the past. "What are they saying?" Chris turned his head up and squinted; he didn't have his contacts in, so he could barely read the comments as Victor scrolled past them. _Congratulations!_ and _lol you guys realize that swiss and russian people kiss all the time it doesn't mean anything_ and _holy fuck the tinhats were right??_ and _aw, they look so cute_.

Victor read out a few of the nicer and more literate ones before turning his phone off. "I didn't want it to be a secret," he said, and there was something to the tone – that strange sadness, which had mostly been absent for the last couple of months, creeping back in as a kind of flatness in his voice. Chris thought he should maybe ask about that – that and the way that Victor had skillfully dodged every question related to what he was planning for next season, which he suspected was not unconnected – but not tonight.

"I didn't say it had to be." It might have been nice for it to be quiet and private for a while longer, but things were going – not perfectly, but well, and he didn't see them heading for a flaming breakup or anything in the near future. "As long as you're okay with it, I don't mind."

Victor snorted and turned so he could rub his cheek against Chris's hair. "International playboy to Chris Giacometti's boyfriend," he mumbled. "How does that sound?"

"Not bad, though I suppose it doesn't matter what the writers call you as long as I get to have you." Victor shifted closer; the way he'd been acting since they both arrived in Japan, it was like he was trying to bottle up all the physical contact he could, though it would only be a short time before they were re-united in Switzerland. "Come here," Chris said, feeling a pang of longing himself despite the fact that they weren't leaving yet, and he pulled Victor down for a slow, relaxed kiss.

And back home in Switzerland, it _was_ only a short time between Worlds ending and Victor's flight arriving, but it still made Chris's heart leap to see him coming out of arrivals, Makkachin trotting at his heels. Their journey back to Chris's apartment was peaceful, and once they got there, they didn't even need to shut Makkachin in the bedroom while they ate the dinner Chris had prepared earlier. She didn't fixate on kitty, and kitty watched warily for a while, came over to sniff their new visitors, and seemed to decide that they didn't represent any threat to her territory.

The town where Chris lived wasn't that large, but Chris still found enough for them to do without going to the rink. They spent the first day being lazy at home, and the second walking around town hand-in-hand so Victor could charm everyone from the baker on the corner to the shy waitress at his favorite café. They went for an even longer walk out of town, although the sky was overcast and the air was cold, and the scenery was not really at its best. At least it gave them an excuse to huddle up together whenever they paused, and Makkachin showed no sign of minding the chill.

"When are we going skating?" Victor asked a few days in, his head in Chris's lap as they lay on the couch.

"We're always skating when we see each other," Chris said. "Don't you enjoy doing something different together?"

"Yes," said Victor, "but if we don't practice, how are we going to keep with all of the spry young things coming to take our medals away?"

"If you burn out, practice won't do you any good. You're just convincing me that you need even more vacation," Chris teased, poking Victor in his shiny forehead. Victor pulled a face, then grabbed his hand so he could press a kiss into the palm.

It was cute. Something warm bloomed in Chris's chest.

"We should go see a movie," Victor offered. "I've only been on one movie date and it was terrible."

"How so?"

"I hated the movie, but my date was actually interested and wouldn't even make out with me instead. I think I ended up leaving."

"I'll let you choose, then." He reached over for his phone to look up what was playing at the nearest theater, then handed it over so Victor could choose. There wasn't much that looked interesting, honestly, but Victor decided on something about a ballet dancer traveling back in time that sounded like a remix of _The King and the Skater_.

Victor handed his phone back and returned to snuggling into Chris's thigh. Chris put a hand in his hair – it was nice to be able to do these things, and to not have the rush of only seeing each other for a few days that were already busy with competition. After a minute, he turned back to his phone and started to scroll through Twitter.

There was a lot of fuss about a video of Yuuri. Was he feeling better? Chris sure hoped so. Curious, he clicked the link.

"Why are you watching that program?" Victor groaned as the music started to play. "Haven't you seen enough of it? I told you, I'll have a nicer set next season, if you would just let me show you."

"It's not a video of you," Chris said. "Here." He pulled Victor up so they could watch together.

Yuuri looked _much_ improved over his Nationals and the GPF. Whatever it was that had caused his painful performance was gone. His movements were smooth as he sailed across the ice, he made the step sequence look like nothing, and he landed his jumps with ease. Chris was already looking forward to seeing him again next year, if he kept skating like this.

As soon as the video was over, Victor hit the replay button.

"You were right about his dancing," Chris said when the video finished a second time. Victor was staring at the phone like he might hit the replay button again, one finger raised to his lips in contemplation. "Victor?" he prompted after the silence had stretched out too long. "Should I be worried?"

"I want to choreograph a program for him," Victor said, and he leaned his head back. "Is that worrying?"

"Mm, it depends. Short program or long program?"

"Both." Chris clicked his tongue. Victor grinned. "Apparently I promised Yura a program, and – you know Mila, right? She says she wants one, too, if she lands her triple axel this season."

"And you want to give yourself more work, I see."

"I think it sounds like fun to make programs for other people. And you saw what he can do with real choreography. I don't know who's been producing them, but his past programs don't suit his strengths at _all_." Victor huffed. "I'd offer you one, too, if your choreographer didn't know what he was doing."

"I'll be sure to let him know that Victor Nikiforov thinks that he's competent."

"I like watching you skate them. You should give me a private performance sometime. Maybe that exhibition from...."

Chris knew which one he was talking about. "Sure," he said, setting his phone aside.

They'd started sliding back down the couch; Chris shifted so they were in a more comfortable position, and Victor settled with his head on Chris's chest this time, idly stroking the stripes on his shirt. Chris thought about what else he might like to do with Victor while he was here – skating, yes, they did have to get on the ice together at some point, and his parents had invited them over, that might be nice. Victor was quiet, up until he said, "This feels so _normal_." He said it like it was a wonder, not a disappointment.

Well, there probably wasn't a lot of time for being normal when you were Victor Nikiforov. Chris had to carve out pockets of it for himself if he wanted it to happen. "Do you like it?" Because he'd enjoyed these past few days a lot; they weren't exciting, no, but it was interesting to learn new things about Victor after all these years of knowing him. How he was stubborn about admitting his hands were cold when he wanted to keep holding Chris's, or the recipes he liked to make for breakfast, or the way he was able to sleep through kitty begging for food in the morning like Chris never could.

And the contented little noises he made in reply to Chris, looking up at him with a smile that was small and tilted, and not distant or fake or sad at all.


End file.
